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Carbon Offsets to Play Role in My Trip Around the World
Posted by Dave on May 8th, 2007
I’m excited to share my decision to make carbon offsets a part of my backpacking trip around the world. As it becomes increasingly evident the US government is far from taking the aggressive measures it’s citizenry would support, I am inspired by the actions of individuals (such as Richard Branson), cities, states (California), and countries (France) to change the carbon equation. In February, after watching An Inconvenient Truth, I began to recycle again. In April, for Earth Day, I bought compact fluorescent lamps.
I am looking forward to developing a strategy to account for my carbon footprint during my trip. For the moment, I’m entertaining the idea of dedicating 50% of any advertising income from this site to offsetting the carbon emissions of the planes, trains and automobiles I will use. For example, one UK company estimated the cost of an offset for an airplane ride from Washington, DC to Auckland, New Zealand at $32. Given this first flight will likely be my longest, it gives me a ballpark for the rest of the trip.
A quick web search for “carbon offset” produces quite a lot of articles and sites referring to them as “scams” and an irresponsible approach to curbing greenhouse gases because it excuses people from conserving. Brave New Traveler has dedicated quite a few posts to this environmental debate, as one of their contributing writers is about to embark upon a carbon neutral trip via organic farms around the world.
For now, I’m just excited to share my idea. I do not envision it will take center stage on this blog, or my trip, however you should certainly expect to see me mention it more often in the coming months.
What are your thoughts on carbon offsets?
Dare Me to do something fun, weird, or challenging on the road!
It depends what they put the money towards, a lot seem to put most of it into planting trees, I think investing it in solar energy would probably be better. I also wonder about how they calculate it, would it still me $32 if you were the only person on the flight? Is the cost shared between consumers?
Sites that calculate carbon offsets and your carbon footprint work on averages, in my state over 90% of electricity comes from renewable sources (hydro and wind) which is far from average. Thats no excuse not to do anything though.
I’ve been looking into this for my own RTW trip and will be offsetting every flight i take, which i hope will be just a couple (we’ll see). I’m using a company called Climate Care to repent all my sins with.
The main reason being they don’t just tag onto existing government schemes, they source bespoke projects that wouldn’t otherwise be fulfilled. They also agree with my view point that planting tree’s merely stores the carbon until the tree’s decay, so ultimately it does no good.
It’s an interesting question. We can either explore the world or stay at home and reduce our personal carbon footprint. I think when it comes to saving the world, the former is the better option. If society becomes any more dumbed down about the diverse cultures of the world, and international understanding further depreciates, inequality, war, and suffering of the majority are a few of the results.
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When you are searching for cheap greenhouse news and sites, be sure to utilize every one of the resources at your disposal….